Written by Steven Barto, B.S. Psy., M.T.S.
John C. Lennox is a mathematician, bioethicist, Christian apologist, and author. He has written many books on religion and ethics and engaged in numerous public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins. I have a copy of Can Science Explain Everything? wherein Lennox writes, “There is what we might call, for convenience, the ‘science’ side. They view themselves as the voice of reason. They believe they are working to roll back the tide of ignorance and superstition that has enslaved mankind since we crawled out of the primeval slime” (1). Lennox provides a summary of what these empiricists believe: Science is an unstoppable force for human development that will deliver answers to our many questions about the universe, and solve many if not all, of our human problems: disease, energy, pollution, poverty. At some stage in the future, science will be able to explain everything, and answer all our needs” (2).
Lennox states that the other extreme, the so-called “God side,” believes that God is behind everything there is and everything we are. They discount heredity, micro-evolution, weather, culture, education, and individual discoveries, focusing only on a wonderful mind behind literally everything in our beautiful world. To a large extent, this viewpoint muddies the water regarding evil and happenstance. (Please see my blog post “Why Can’t God Stop Evil?”) These two dichotomies have led to centuries of fighting and name-calling, papers, counter papers, debate, editorial license, and shortcuts. It also leads to harsh rhetoric, like what Physics Nobel Prize winner Stephen Weinberg said: “The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religion. Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilisation [sic]” (3).
Lennox explains a valuable lesson he learned about a dark side to academia: “There are some scientists who set out with preconceived ideas, do not really wish to discuss evidence, and appear to be fixated not on the pursuit of truth but on propagating the notions that science and God do not mix and that those who believe in God are simply ignorant” (4). The history of modern science includes great Christian and theist pioneers like Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and George Mendel. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator” (5). Thomas Nagel made it known that his atheism arose from a personal dislike of the idea of God. He said, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I am right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that” (6) [italics mine].
Lewis’s apologetic approach looks at a common human observation or experience that fits naturally within a Christian viewpoint. He said Christianity provides us with a bigger picture of reality that is intellectually sound. This stance certainly riles science. Alvin Plantinga, however, echoes Lewis in contending “…if there is deep concord between science and Christian or theistic belief, but deep conflict between science and naturalism then there is a science/religion (or science/quasi-religion) conflict, all right, but it isn’t between science and theistic religion; it’s between science and naturalism” (7). J.P. Moreland responds to this dilemma as follows: “Scientism says that the hard sciences alone have the intellectual authority to give us knowledge of reality. Everything else, especially ethics, theology, and philosophy is, at least according to scientism, based on private emotions, blind faith, or cultural upbringing” (8). It is important to note that science is not represented through scientism, and that scientism is philosophy, not science. (Please see my blog post “More on Scientism.”)
You may have heard it said that Western civilization has become a post-Christian culture. Alister McGrath takes it one step further: “…we live in a post-truth world in which we just make up our beliefs… we decide what we would like to be true, then live as if it were true” (9). His post-truth comment is a reference to moral relativism: the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. Relativism, secularism, and pluralism have attempted to take a bite out of Christian theology and theism.
McGrath quotes Bertrand Russell: “In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt” (10). Russell believes people should study philosophy because it teaches us “how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed [sic] by hesitation” (11). The apologetic approach of C.S. Lewis serves to identify the common human experience, and then show how it fits, naturally and plausibly, within a Christian way of looking at things. Lewis believes the human sense of longing for something that is really real, truly significant, yet proves frustratingly difficult to satisfy, is a clue to humanity’s true fulfillment lying with God. I have heard this longing identified as “a hole in our soul.”
Lewis asks us to look into the Christian way of seeing things and to explore how things look when seen from its standpoint; as if to say try seeing things this way. Granted, worldviews and metanarratives (with all their preconceptions, biases, and presuppositions) can be compared to lenses. Lewis recommends finding out which view brings things into sharpest focus. Further, he notes in Mere Christianity that many people know a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, leading to emptiness and lack of fulfillment. I might add that this “God hunger” is worldwide regardless of culture or religion. For Lewis, there is a third viewpoint that sees earthly longings as a kind of copy, echo, or foreshadowing of our true homeland.
It is truly appropriate for science to be established through an evidence-based approach to theories. In order for these theories to stand, science must identify the evidence that needs to be interpreted, and then try (through the scientific method) to work out which theories are best able to explain empirical phenomena. Imagine the difficulty Einstein faced when proving his theoretical understanding of the photoelectric effect. He set out to establish whether light is made of particles or waves. This is a highly significant concept. Dawkins is rather suspicious of religious beliefs because they seem to involve a retreat from critical thinking and disengagement from evidence-based reasoning (12). Not surprisingly, Dawkins considers religious faith to be “…blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence” (12). Faith is not blind trust, for that would make it illogical.
How is apologetics a part of all this? Groothuis refers to Huntington in Christian Apologetics, who said, “What means the most to [people] is, in the final analysis, their worldview: that complex of concepts that explains and gives meaning to reality from where they stand: given their diverse ancestries, histories, institutions and religions” (13). James Sire defines worldview as “…a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) that we hold (consciously or unconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being” (14).
For those who would blame God (or Christianity, or Islam) for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Gene Edward Veith, Jr. penned the following: “[Thomas C.] Oden saw postmodernism in a different light than I did. He saw it as a reversion to the sensibility of premodern times, marking the end of theological liberalism and making possible a return to Christian orthodoxy” (15). Veith said, “But immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I thought I was witnessing another of Oden’s milestones, a building’s demolition that marked the end of an era and the beginning of something new. Postmodernists believe that reality is a construction (of the mind, of the will, of the culture) rather than an objective truth. But those planes flying into those skyscrapers, taking everyone by surprise, were no mental constructions” (16). Veith notes that even as the dust was settling over lower Manhattan that fateful morning, he heard television broadcasts, readings in the press, and dozens of conversations that were decidedly non-postmodern. In considering the terrorists, their background and their ideology, no one sounded like a relativist. What the terrorists did was evil, people were saying. Veith remarked that not all cultures are equally valid after all. In fact, not all religions are equally beneficent.
Dawkins believes there is no room for faith in science. Evidence supposedly compels the drawing of a valid conclusion. “Science” resulting from the scientific method is decidedly true. Dawkins asks what is faith? He asks his readers if it is a state of mind that leads (“pushes” as he would argue) people to believe something (whatever it may be) regardless of a total lack of supporting evidence. McGrath, however, says, “The issue is that Dawkins here fails to make the critically important distinction between the total absence of supporting evidence” (17). McGrath argues that Dawkins seems to make an erroneous logical transition from “this cannot be proved” to “this is false.” Lack of empirical proof does not ipso facto conclude that something is untrue. Of course, science has established its reputation worldwide as an effective way of making sense of the universe for many reasons, including its skepticism about establishing truths beyond what can be observed. Otherwise, science would be a “faith” or religion.
Of course, as a Christian and a theology student, I do not see God as a physical object within the universe. This does not fit in with systematic theology. God is not a part of creation; rather, He has providence over creation. He is the originator, foundation, and grand cause of all things. Romans 4:17 says God called into existence the things that did not exist. Hebrews 11:3 states, “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” What this signifies is that God did not use any previously existing materials when He created the universe. There were such existing materials. God created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing).
McGrath suggests that Christians think of God not as part of a painting or diagram, but rather as the canvas on which the picture is painted, or the frame in which it is set. This concept seems to me to miss the point. Instead, I see God as the painter (the “Grand Artist”), not the canvas. God is identified as Creator in the OT (Isa. 40:28; 42:5; 45:18) and NT (Mark 13:19; Rev. 10:6). Creation occurs by God’s Word (Gen. 1:3; John 1:1-3). Since God as Creator is the explanation for the existence of the world and humans, creation establishes our deepest, most essential relation to God (18). Creation speaks of God’s great power and wisdom, for He alone established energy, substance, movement, gravity, and all that mankind has discovered and categorized. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ is “…upholding the universe by his word of power.”
Footnotes
(1) John C. Lennox, Can Science Explain Everything? (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 9.
(2) Lennox, Ibid., 9-10.
(3) Weinberg, in Lennox, Ibid., 14.
(4) Lennox, Ibid., 16.
(5) C.S. Lewis, Miracles (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 140.
(6) Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997), 130.
(7) Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion & Naturalism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), x.
(8) J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 23.
(9) Alister McGrath, Richard Dawkins, C.S. Lewis and the Meaning of Life (London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2019), 16.
(10) McGrath, Ibid., 17.
(11) Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (London, UK: Allen & Unwin, 1946), xiv.
(12) Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2d ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989), 198.
(13) Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 21.
(14) James Sire, The Universe Next Door, 5th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 20.
(15) Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Post Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 14.
(16) Veith, Ibid.
(17) McGrath, Ibid., 23.
(18) D.K. McKim, “Creation,” in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 216.
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